Heartbreaking games. In the Joecreek game, I won because he dilly-dallied. But my queen infiltration should have come earlier. I had a real chance in the Hectordemadrid game. Just needed to advance the f-pawn to support the far advanced e-pawn. The Dr. Bob game should have been a win. Just needed to sacrifice the knight on f6 instead of letting him proceed with the mate threat.

My master suggested to me that perhaps my mates with king and queen against king are insufficiently efficient. I played kqk 5 times on ICC. It never took me more than 8 moves to mate.The first three times, Crafty did not find a faster mate. The 4th time I mated in 8 while it tookCrafty 6. The second time I mated in 7 while it took Crafty 6. I am not alarmed. This all took about 5 minutes.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Rounds 3 and 4 were not helped by my two year old's deciding to get up and start screaming at me. I forfeited and did not play round 5.[Event "ICC"][Site "Internet Chess Club"][Date "2009.11.13"][White "nhkatz"][Black "ChariotsOfFire"][Result "0-1"][WhiteElo "1256"][BlackElo "1252"][ECO "C11"][Opening "French"][Variation "Steinitz variation"][TimeControl "120+6"]

Having taught my class and rushed to the student union to by a headset for skyping,I have arrived in my office in time to play the 11:30 ICC weelday blitz. I will record and analyze the games, fulfilling my master's wishes of me for the day.

My master has asked to solve exercises in Reinfeld's book 1001 winning chess sacrfices andcombinations for 15 minutes today. It is just before 9:30 A.M. EST and I have about that long before I have to go teach my class.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

First game was a total bluff. Ilmari could have won just by taking rook. Second game had no chance. Missed opportunities to withdraw knight but no magic bullet. Third game was nonsense. Hung two different pieces on the same pawn. Opponent missed it but still won. 4th game was kind of nice. Missed killer rook sacrifice in 5th game.

Got done grading calculus at 9:15 EST. Hoped to have 1 1/2 hours to study the survival guideto rook's endings. Didn't quite work out because at 9:30 my wife insisted on talking to me for 20 minutes about the prerequisite structure of our analysis courses.

Still managed to play through the examples of rook vs. 1 pawn and rook vs. 2 pawns. Got done at 10:30 EST. Will play nightly u1500 at 11:00 EST wish me luck. The pairings are determinedby rank ordering of blitz ratings. After indiscriminant blitz play this afternoon got my rating up to 1300. Makes it equally likely 1st game will be against higher or lower rated opponent.